Naked Poetry

I was boney in my youth. Truth is, I still am. I just wanted to be dramatic. Exaggeration suspends the end of time.

I am most in peace in melodrama. The only way to befriend Karma is by being kind.

    This is as far as I’ll go.

Is it like water. Is it like Ocean. Is it like falling in love.

And then there were the days I wouldn't let the sun inside me.

Too happy. Too color. Too much energy. And tell the coroner that I must be wrapped in French translation. For my father’s sake. And to cradle me in an Irish flag—for my mother, with creole chatterings written around the edges, for my father’s father. Allow me to mean it when I say my last words, which will be dedicated to the girl who danced for her pact with the color green that laces all nature. Goodbye.

Paint me whole world.

Find the one cloud left in my spite

tres bon.

too good…

As in what Katherine Hepburn’s voice

sounded while she spoke of Abe Lincoln

Yes, true, I lied——

that kind of beauty–

a hammer to the heart.

Yes, true, I cried—–

let’s play chess on the stars!

they’re so close in the milky way

we can each have our own

let

us

go.

Let us leave

move your knight

wear your cake-cracked

ballet shoes

pitched so black

90 miles per hour

I am outside of the lines

near that fire escape

where I begged you to save me.

You refused touch.

You refused touch

for so long

I don’t even know

what science feels like

anymore.

Something about me having

actual power.

Something about crumble.

Something about my power,

but BABY—–

WHAT is more alive

than a million little pieces?

Driving.

Thinking of the lumps I cannot swallow.

The sun covets one half of my faith.

I'm a complication; it's simple.

You couldn't get me to sleep if you killed me.

I'm one red eye away from enlightenment.

Please don't take the sun from my room.

And if I could take pictures of my moods, I would, but they would not fit into frames. Always, it is always my eccentricities versus the world and its formalities. It’s the quintessence of my quiet that scares you.

“Hush,” I said

Look at what she chooses. Forget about her shoes.

Look at how they are nothing like her.

Look at how they sing.

Notice how she doesn’t smile –

at everything.

Bruises crawl across

her loving skin –

they look like sets of phrases.

She must get in a lot of

fights

with fate.

I was airport tired. Nine hours looking out of a bus window into the forest green—does a number on ya. I could use your hug now. I haven’t any blankets,

and you’re lovelier than most things anyway. Come then. Come now.

On Bernard Shaw’s plan you can write five novels in five years.

No way to know if they’ll be great or not, but I trust you will know yourself

well, and fleeting. It is no unfamiliar happening that heroin, and heroine—are just one letter

apart. There is something else in their smiles…. In your

outer-most spine. Reaping hegemony over your guarded

heart.

O belief! O contrar!

         Love in a seashell. Seek our your ears. O smile everyone, it is over. I don’t mean to be iconoclastic, but the bible is of no use to the modern world. Leave it for the afterlife behind us. Following us. Not one Need to hide your viscidity anymore, behold---------------------------------

Volition.

I writhe for you. I twis

It's not your fault you  see x’s where everyone else see o’s.

That your rings fly off when you try to skip rocks.

That you still daydream of being dragged through the Great Lakes by your Left earring.

That you daydream.

That you can't drink.

Don't think. Thinking makes you lean. Too lean. Poor thing. She's on her 12th mile already. Look at her go—

pray for her bones. Why is she smiling? Maybe she likes the pain. Maybe she likes the drain. Wonder if she knows they named that bridge after her. She passes it every day. I heard she believes everybody hates her. I heard her moms a Saint. I heard her play piano once. Saw the strength in her face.  I heard she left on purpose. With a pen in her hand. With a tune on her breath. I heard half of her stayed. I heard half of her did not want to go.

It's not your fault you see o’s where everyone else sees x’s. She says, “it's not fair to want things after trying to give everything away.”

I feel t

Was it worth it? Was it worth the $200 dollars, was it worth the 20 hours of captioning? Was it worth your lips?

Was it worth the cancer? Was it worth the tips? Was it worth your mother? Was it worth your world? Who are you now are you

Is it worth the havoc. Is it worth the wreck? Things I’ve asked myself after/before self-sabotage.